


Every Idle Word

by Anonymous



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: "suicide", Abandon all hope ye who enter here, Angst, Attempted Suicide, Autopsy, Brainwashing, Grief, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mourning, Slave coding, Suicide, Technobabble, Unhappy Ending, ambiguous ending, ask to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The fighting is done, the dust is settling. This kind of loss isn't supposed tohappenanymore, they are supposed to bedone.Optimus doesn't know how to face this, or what answers there are to be had.Prompt fill for Maccadam's Back Room First Run.
Relationships: Jazz/Optimus Prime, implied Jazz/Prowl
Comments: 34
Kudos: 57
Collections: Maccadam's Back Room First Run





	Every Idle Word

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Maccadams1](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Maccadams1) collection. 



“I think it’s perfectly clear what’s happening here,” says Megatron eventually. 

His voice punctuates the heavy blanket of silence that covers the room. Four mechs, five depending how you count it, and not a single word spoken, out loud or over comms. Optimus has ordered Red Alert to lock down the whole facility for the interim; no messages coming through to any of them. Ratchet’s medbay-turned-morgue is as somber as the funeral Optimus realises with a jolt he is going to have to organise. 

He is hyper aware of his entire body; the slow pulse of his spark below the matrix in his chest, the gentle thrum of his systems turning over, the lowered temperature Ratchet keeps the medbay at registering on his external plating. Jazz is standing closer than is strictly necessary, his EM field a reassuring mesh with Optimus’ own. Selfishly, he is glad for it. He knows that he’ll feel the magnitude of Jazz’s grief in private later, but right here, right now—he doesn’t think he could stand here and watch without Jazz’s support. 

Ratchet is the one who responds to Megatron, not even looking away from the screen in his hands where the information scrolls past at a speed Optimus simply isn’t built to process. “Oh yeah?” he says, tone carefully modulated, but Optimus can hear the anger Ratchet is holding back. “And what’s your grand theory here?”

“Someone is attempting to sabotage our efforts,” says Megatron. He sounds certain. Megatron always sounds certain, it’s half of what’s made the entire process of organising the treaty take as long as it has. In the past it was one of the most aggravating things about him; right now Optimus envies him for the quality. 

“Mark my words,” continues Megatron, his voice steel and gunfire. “You’ll find something to tell you this wasn’t self inflicted. Someone has meddled, either someone close who is hiding their motives, or someone external who has gotten closer than they should.”

“Whatever answers there are to find will be found,” says Ratchet, and there’s a hint of his usual testiness, the attitude he takes when someone has done something stupid or is wasting his time. It’s the tone he uses with other Autobots, in short, the people he likes, a contrast to the icy civility he’s been using with the Decepticon officers he’s been forced to interact with during this process. “But I can only look at what’s been logged in his processor history and in his coding, I can’t very well read his damn thoughts and memories. This happens. It happens to perfectly ordinary people. Those of us left behind don’t always get answers.”

Prowl’s corpse, motionless and already greying, face down on the repurposed medical berth, offers no answers to any of them. 

* * *

It had been a hell of a week. Clearly Orion wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “Are you alright?” he called over the bridge railing to the shadow of the figure moving below the water’s surface. 

The river that moated the impressive building that the Prime’s team had taken over was acidic, and even with the constant dilution from those who focused on the upkeep of the building and surrounding areas, it probably wasn’t healthy to be submerged in it for very long. Or at all. The shadow moved towards the interior shore, and Orion reversed the way he was going to walk back and meet them as they emerged. 

A chevroned helm broke the surface as Orion stepped off the path and onto the sloped shore, and raised panels of kibble attached to the mech’s back started to emerge barely a moment later. The face under the chevron looked impressively impassive as he approached the shore where Orion waited, and it wasn’t until the pattern of his colours became apparent that Orion realised he recognised the swimmer. 

He held out a hand, which the mech took as he came up the shore, a grateful flick of his field brushing up against Orion’s. “Thank you,” he said, voice fuzzy with static. Orion could see minor acid damage already forming on his plating, and it looked as though some of it had seeped under, hitting the cables and sensors underneath. 

“Glad to help,” said Orion, waiting for the mech to steady himself. “You’re Prowl, yes? On the Prime’s internal advisory committee?”

“Yes,” confirmed Prowl, tilting his head slightly and rubbing the plating around where his vocaliser sat with a rueful expression. “I don’t know you, I apologise.”

“Orion Pax, I’m a transplant from Alpha Trion’s team. I only got here yesterday.”

“I see,” said Prowl, straightening his head again and lowering his hand. The brief flicker of his field was gone, pulled back in close in his personal space. His eyes flicked to the building behind Orion’s head, and his plating ruffled and settled again, the panels on his back lowering in an almost swooping motion. “We’ll be working together then.”

“Apparently so,” said Orion. Prowl held himself still, composed, more like a statue then a mech, polite impassivity on his face despite the fact that the acidic solution he’d been soaked in had to be making him itch at the very least. Orion’s finger twitched, field pushing out despite himself, and he cocked his head. “Can I ask why you were in the river?”

“I was told to jump off a bridge,” said Prowl mildly, the edges of his field pulling back even more. 

Orion couldn’t help it: he barked a laugh. “Then I guess we’re lucky you weren’t told to jump off the Iacon Narrows specifically,” he joked, smiling. 

Luckily, this seemed to do the trick. Prowl’s eyes returned to Orion’s face, and there was a small, rueful twist to his mouth now. “I guess so.”

“I think we’re going to have an interesting time working together,” said Orion, using a short range ping to indicate he was being friendly, trying to widen the little crack in Prowl’s composure. It would be nice to have someone he was friendly with here. “Very pleased to meet you, Prowl. Do you want a hand cleaning up?”

Prowl’s head tilted, expression and field unreadable, but after a moment he pinged Orion back and stepped in range. “I would like that, thank you.”

* * *

The way he met Prowl didn’t seem terribly unusual once Orion had been working with him directly for a while. Sentinel Prime was authoritative and mercurial, and he detested long meetings, being told that he was wrong, and dealing with the consequences their actions had. Prowl was a frequent target for his ire; sometimes Orion felt the urge to jump in a river to get away from the Prime as well. 

Not the most respectful way to think of their divinely appointed leader, perhaps, but Orion could admit to having flaws. 

Orion had taken to sitting with Prowl during the long meetings. Prowl didn’t seem to have many allies on the little council despite (...or maybe because of) his skill—and he was very skilled. Orion had never met anyone who could run through probable outcomes with that kind of efficiency, and he was used to analytical thinkers, pit, he was one himself. Orion was good at what he did, but Prowl had very literally been optimised for it. 

This particular meeting was gruelling. Orion dismissed a third notification from his systems that his fuel levels had fallen into the critical zone, and tried to refocus his optics on Sentinel. He was leaning over the table and talking down to Chromia, who had abandoned all pretence of taking things down on her datapad and was meeting the Prime’s gaze with her own, expression stony. Her field was swamping the table; Orion could feel her cold anger with alarming clarity and he was three mechs down from her. 

They were well into the off shift, and stalling at the last hurdle. It was just the last evacuation route out of Vaporex; a game of security versus capacity. 

“Prowl,” snapped the Prime, abandoning Chromia, frustration ripe in his field as he rounded on Prowl. “Give me the numbers for Epsilon.”

This close, Orion could see the cables in Prowl’s seams flex and tense, ready to pull his plating in, though he carefully made sure it didn’t actually move. “Twenty six point eight three percent,” said Prowl, with only the slightest hesitation. 

“That’s not good enough,” said Sentinel sharply. “Epsilon has the best numbers?”

“Yes sir,” said Prowl, head tilting minutely. “Gamma ranks at sixteen point zero four percent and that’s the next—“

“We need it to be at least forty,” snapped Sentinel, scowling. “Account for the heightened—“

“I’ve accounted for all the variables, sir,” said Prowl stiffly. “With every factor operating at full capability—“

“You are _missing_ something, you have to be,” said Sentinel bluntly, both hands braced on the table in front of him. “We have to do better, we cannot gamble on lives with twenty six!”

“Twenty six percent is the best odds we can get at our current abilities,” said Prowl, and Orion could feel his already tight field pulling in even further. “With the resources we have—“

“I don’t care,” snapped Sentinel, fury lacing his tone. “Do your job properly, Prowl! With the resources we have available forty is the minimum I expect, and if you can’t run a simple allocation sim that gets us to at least forty then your processor is only useful to me as a door stop! Run it again, using the resources we have been discussing today, and if you can’t give me forty then I expect you to disconnect your energon lines from your processor and look forward to your future holding open entry ways!”

The volume mounted with his anger, leaving a ringing silence in his wake. Prowl stiffened, expression hard, and his plating did actually tighten as he tapped his finger on the table twice, his optics acquiring the distant look Orion had come to associate with him over clocking himself. 

It was an agonisingly tense few moments, everyone watching, monitoring Prowl’s progress. It didn’t escape Orion’s notice that he was the only one close enough to actually feel Prowl’s field—could Prowl tell that, actually? There was a lot of distance between mechs in this circle, and Prowl kept people at arm’s length anyway. Not to mention the fact that Orion was a little better at reading people’s fields than he typically let on, and maybe he should tell Prowl that, actually, if only for the sake of his coveted privacy.

Orion was probably the only one in the room who could feel Prowl’s field, which meant he was the first one to startle. There was a flare—a subtle one but still a _flare_ —of pure grief, and before Orion could even process _that_ Prowl’s hands had snaked up to his neck, ripping at the energon cables running from his torso to his helm. 

The reactions were nigh instantaneous, yells and fields flaring with shock all across the room as everyone was flung into action. Orion went straight for Prowl, acting on pure instinct as he slammed his hands over the energon spouting horrifically from Prowl’s neck. 

Prowl’s optics were dimming with a weak, static cry from his vocaliser as Orion flared panic in response to the resignation in Prowl’s field. Energon slicked between his fingers, pumping thickly from the torn cables and Orion could vaguely feel the flying pings and messages to medical staff as people yelled around him. 

“Primus,” someone muttered, clear as day in Orion’s audials. 

Orion made a snap decision and lifted Prowl bodily. He was one of the bulkier mechs in the room, it would be faster to run him to medical than to wait for transport and with the loss of energon—

He tried not to think of what could happen as he turned and started legging it towards the door, firing off every alert he could think of to the medical unit down the hall. Voices and wavelengths rose around him as he left, and Sentinel’s voice started to cut clear across the chatter as the door swung on its hinges. 

“Useless, melodramatic, PILE OF FRIED CIRCUITS—“

Prowl twitched in his arms, and Orion sped up.

* * *

They’d come a long way from the mechs they’d once been, Optimus reflected as he moved down the hall, feet treading the familiar path, but some things just never changed. 

As predicted, the light was on in Prowl’s office, and Optimus felt amusement tug at the corner of his mouth. The door slid open soundlessly ahead of him, and Optimus laughed, leaning in the doorway. “Am I getting that predictable?” he asked, letting the battle mask slide back as he relaxed at the sight of Prowl bent over his desk, plugged into three datapads at once. 

Prowl looked over, the far away expression on his face snapping back to the sharp, analytic expression Optimus was more used to. “Hmm? No. The Matrix did nothing to lessen the weight of your footsteps, however.”

“I don’t think making the hand of Primus more trim is quite part of its purpose,” said Optimus, tilting his head a little. “Can I have a moment of your time?”

“You mean you’re not here to drag me off to refuel and defrag?” asked Prowl drily, disconnecting from the datapads and pulling himself out of the relaxed slouch he’d taken in his desk chair. His back panels flicked to attention, rolling slightly in their sockets as they did when Prowl had been leaning on them too long. “Fire away, my Prime.”

“Stop that,” said Optimus, whipping amusement at the point where their EM fields met as he sat down across from Prowl. Prowl reciprocated in kind with the ghost of a smile, and Optimus’ spark warmed in his chest. They really had come a long way. “Personal, not Primal.”

“Ah,” said Prowl, the smile reaching realisation. “Is this the kind of conversation that will require the aid of some uh, confiscated engex that might currently reside in my bottom drawer?”

Optimus’ smile widened into a rueful grin. “I hope not. Wheeljack again?”

“No, Wheeljack and I have an arrangement now,” Prowl informed him drily. “One of the new recruits in Ironhide’s division. We’ve talked, he seemed to take things in stride. What do you want to talk about?”

“Advice, of the uh, relationship flavour,” said Optimus, shrugging with one shoulder. 

“Are you sure you’re in the right office?” asked Prowl, leaning on one hand. “Jazz is just across the hall—I mean, he’s not in there now, I’m fairly certain, but there’s always a chance you got our rooms mixed up.”

Optimus hummed noncommittally. “Jazz is actually more relevant to the topic at hand,” he said evasively. 

One of Prowl’s back panels had been rotating lazily in the air just behind Prowl’s head. It froze, and Prowl’s field crept back a few inches, not quite brushing Optimus’ anymore. “Is that so?” said Prowl slowly. 

“Mhmm,” hummed Optimus, reaching his field out a further few inches to touch the edge of Prowl’s again. “I know the war has kept us all rather, uh, preoccupied—“

“That’s one way of putting it,” said Prowl carefully, his field static and moderated carefully. Damn. 

“Yes, well.” Optimus reset his vocaliser with an audible click. “I’d like to think that us, as comrades, the whole command staff, I mean—Primus. Over time I think it’s safe to say we’ve come to see each other as friends as well as colleagues, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment, true,” said Prowl neutrally. “We live in each other’s subspace, so to speak, and fighting alongside each other for so long does bring out a tendency towards loyalty and amiability that might otherwise not occur in a less... Fraught environment.”

“Exactly,” said Optimus, relief colouring his tone. “And some of us have gotten closer than we strictly need to and I think that’s a good thing. We’re a unit, not a committee.”

“Yes,” said Prowl, amused patience colouring his tone as he relaxed slightly. 

At least Optimus’ discomfort was entertaining for someone in the room. He sighed, plating ruffling as the vent escaped. “Has anyone caught your eye? Romantically, I mean. You’re very private about this kind of thing.”

Prowl’s field snapped all the way in, and he stiffened, the arm he was leaning on coming down to lie across the top of the desk. “No,” he said, tone as stiff as his posture. “You remember Sentinel Prime’s attitude with regards to the topic, I trust?”

“Yes,” said Optimus, distaste colouring his tone. He could hear the exact words, actually, Sentinel had had a habit of making sure what he said was remembered. “‘No one in this room gets even a taste of romance until this planet is at peace’, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Prowl, sounding equally disdainful about it. 

“Prowl, Sentinel is dead,” said Optimus flatly. “And...” he paused, considering his next words. 

Prowl’s gaze seemed unusually intent, focused on Optimus, and his field crept out a little, back panels rigid and attentive. 

“And I’d like to think I’m a better mech than him,” finished Optimus eventually. 

Prowl’s back panels swung down sharply, and he looked down at his hand on the table top, nodding. “Of course,” he said. “You are, you know that.”

“Thank you,” said Optimus sincerely. “I’m not sure I deserve that, some days.”

“Do any of us, really?” asked Prowl. He reset his vocaliser twice and looked up again, seeming more weary than he had before. “I’m sorry, can I ask how this topic turns back around to Jazz?”

“The point, yes,” said Optimus, leaning on Prowl’s desk with another, armour ruffling, sigh. “Jazz has a great deal of affection and regard for you, you know?”

Prowl’s optics blinked, and he nodded slowly, his field pulsing out once, but it dragged back in tight before Optimus could catch what he was feeling. “He is... A dear friend to me, at this stage,” he said slowly. 

“As you are to me, and I hope I am to you,” said Optimus with a soft smile. “That’s why I came to you. You’re close, not just with me, but with him.”

Prowl’s fingers flexed on the desk’s surface, and he nodded, waiting patiently for Optimus to continue. 

Optimus shifted uncomfortably in his spot and nodded sharply. “I don’t think my regard for Jazz is entirely, uh, friendly,” he admitted. “We’ve been spending more time together lately, not just over reports, and I was hoping you might have some advice over how to approach him. I know you two had a disagreement last week—“

Prowl nodded, resetting his vocaliser again. Too tired, probably, he always worked too hard. “He asked for something I couldn’t provide,” he said with a dismissive shrug. 

“If it’s a supply issue—“

“It’s an impossibility,” said Prowl flatly, shaking his head once. “It’s fine, I handled it. I doubt it will come up again, given the current state of affairs. I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask, however. I’m not... Worth much, for that kind of thing, apparently.”

“Then give me a reassurance?” asked Optimus with a rueful grin. “Tell me you think I should approach him, I’ve always been awful at this, you only have to ask Elita—“

Prowl’s field spiked again, too fast to catch, and the armour plating over his shoulders shifted and settled before he looked at Optimus again. “You should approach him,” he said calmly. “I’m sure he’d welcome it, he thinks highly of you, as a person, not just as a Prime or a commander. Is that helpful?”

Optimus huffed a quiet laugh and straightened, pinging Prowl a glyph of gratitude. “Immensely,” he said warmly. “Thank you, you’re an impeccable friend, like always. Come on, don’t you think it’s about that time of evening I drag you off to refuel and defrag?”

Prowl picked up the first of the datapads in front of him. “If it’s alright, I’d like to get through these first,” he said politely. “They’re necessary for the morning shift. I think Jazz is finishing up a response plan with Ratchet in medical if you wanted to go find him, though. I will be appropriately rested, I promise.”

“If you’re sure,” said Optimus, pulling himself to his feet. “I’m sorry to worry at you. You’re my friend, not just my second. I want you to be healthy and happy, you know that right?”

Prowl looked up at him, expression unreadable, field impossible to sense. “I know,” he said simply. “You’re my friend too.”

* * *

Ratchet’s field flares sharply, reaching all over the medical bay with wild anger before he pulls it back in. Medical protocols means his EM range is second only to Optimus’—he can monitor the whole bay without leaving his desk if he needs to. 

“You’ve found something,” says Megatron sharply, standing properly from where he’s been leaning against the wall, eyes focused intently on Ratchet’s every move. 

“Maybe,” says Ratchet, optics glued to the datapad in his hand. “This code tree—it’s stacked with cascading impulses, I have to follow it all the way back to the root, hang on.”

Optimus doesn’t even realise how tense he is until Jazz’s hand meets his own. His optics slide down to see Jazz standing next to him, expression almost peaceful, visor aimed directly at Prowl’s body. He squeezes Jazz’s fingers gently, and Jazz rubs his thumb in a quick circle on the back of Optimus’ hand, the weight of his field thickening with barely suppressed grief. 

“Jazz.” Optimus’ voice sounds alien, even to his own processor. He tries again. “Jazz, I’m sorry, can you—if there’s anything we’re missing. Can you tell us how you found him?”

Jazz nods slowly. “Yeah, mech,” he says, voice devoid of any of his usual inflection. “Red’s running the security footage now, but he says his first pass ain’t got anything sus. I got a message from Prowl, ‘bout an hour after the second shift ended, sayin’ that he was gonna try an’ pull you two away from treaty specs. I didn’t hear anything from him after that. Lil’ while later I get a message from Red, lettin’ me know there was a report a’ gunfire on the officer deck, an’ that Prowl was the last one headed that direction. I said I’d check it out, comm’d Prowl, got no response. When I headed up there myself, offices were empty, no signatures on the floor. Couldn’t get a read on Prowl either, but Red said he was up there so—“

He pauses, vocaliser clicking, and Optimus pings him several glyphs of support and love, trying not to bely how hopeless he feels himself. 

Jazz redoubles, plating ruffling as he releases a quiet vent. “Red said he was up there so I checked his office. It was locked, but the door was readin’ occupied, so I tried pingin’ him again, only I got a ‘no receiver’ back, which—tole’ myself it didn’ mean anythin’. Anyway—“

Ratchet shifts where he is sitting, and Jazz immediately cuts himself off as all three spectators stare intently. He doesn’t say anything, not even looking up to meet their gazes, and Optimus forces himself to ask: “What have you found?”

“Hmm?” Ratchet looks up, and blinks at the expectant looks directed his way. “A priority order. It’s old, but it appears to be an iteration on a ranking built into his primary code. It’s structural, so I’m going to follow it, but this is about to get unpleasant.”

Optimus is halfway to asking Ratchet what he means when Ratchet stands and sets the datapad down, reaching for Prowl’s body. Megatron makes a noise of distaste and turns his head quickly, and a moment later Optimus feels compelled to join him as Ratchet uses a tool to pry open the gaps between the plating down Prowl’s back. 

On a live mech it would be a simple matter of triggering the transformation sequence for access. Optimus has never seen it done to a corpse, and he’s reminded uncomfortably of a human’s lobster dinner. It makes sense. The primary processors, the ones a mech is first onlined with, are built around the spark chamber. The ports to access them are located on the spine that connects protoform to armour. To get at the _basic_ coding—

Jazz is as tense as a live wire beside him, and Optimus attempts to pulse calm and comfort through the tight mesh of their fields. It doesn’t help, and Jazz is focused on Prowl, and with a start Optimus remembers that Jazz has _done_ this exact procedure, remembers how Jazz shook, how he described it as a horrific violation, to stalk along the most basic parts of someone’s mind while they themselves are shockingly, notably absent. Optimus increases his grip on Jazz’s hand, the cables in his finger joints tensing as if to ground him, to hold him in place. 

“Jazz, can you—“ he asks, and Jazz nods slowly again, not even looking away from Prowl as Ratchet unspools three different data cables and plugs into the ports down Prowl’s spine. 

Jazz continues as though there had been no interruption, as though this isn’t happening in front of them. “His office was readin’ as occupied, but no response and no sign a’ anyone, so I used command override on the lock to get in. The corpse—“ 

Not Prowl, Optimus notes, but the corpse. All that’s left is data after all, his personality, the processes that made him Prowl, are gone, lost forever with the mech himself. The corpse. It hurts to hear Jazz distance it like that, though he continues, unaware of Optimus’ internal distress over something as small as a word. 

“—was in his chair. It, uh, he, he’d braced ‘imself so he wouldn’ slide outta it after.” Jazz’s vocaliser clicks as he resets it, and then a second time, and a third before he can continue. “He braced himself. Locked his knee joints, I think. The gun—one a ours, standard issue, think it’s the one ‘Hide gave to ‘im last year after we had tha’ run in the swamp—the gun was on the floor next to him. Recently fired, matched the signature Red picked up on. Matched the wound. Seen enough a those holes in mechs before. It was fired with precision, straight through the secondary processors in the helm where the main energon lines feed in.”

The reason Prowl is face down on the berth. There’s a hole where his face used to be, and the inside of his head is filled with melted metal and plastic from the destroyed processors, and energon where he’d bled. So much energon. 

“Confirmed as the cause of death,” fills in Ratchet softly, not looking away from his gruesome task. “His personality core and feedback response centres took the hit, and then he bled out in seconds. He wouldn’t have felt anything.”

It’s not reassuring. Everyone in the room has dealt that kind of blow to someone else over the course of their war, even Ratchet. They all know how to make that shot. As efficient as a form of execution. 

Optimus feels like his vocaliser is entirely static. Mercifully, Megatron speaks next. “Was there anything in the room?” he asks. 

Jazz starts, as though he’s forgotten Megatron is even there. “Nothin’ unusual,” he says eventually. “The tapestry on the wall he got special from the knittin’ group in Portland las’ week. The contraband drawer was locked, not tampered with. All a his files in place. Inbox empty, outbox ready ta go for tomorrow mornin’. He uh, he emptied his subspace on the desk, though. Had all the usual stuff. Back up gun, standard issue; personal datapad; emergency rations; external radio unit; field medical kit; tha’ stupid, half-broken acid rifle from the Praxian enforcer armoury he fraggin’ held onto all this _damn_ time—“ 

He crackles off into broken static at that, hand shaking violently in Optimus’ grip. His grip on his field slips briefly, and Optimus is awash with the anger and confusion swamping Jazz. Jazz vents hard, plating flaring for a long moment before he pulls it back in, trying to regain control over his field. Optimus strengthens the presence of his field, pushing as much of his shared sorrow into it as he can and sending Jazz glyphs for comfort, love, support, everything he can think of, uncaring of the fact that Megatron is in the room and undoubtedly watching what he’s doing. 

Ratchet’s engine turns over suddenly, startled, and a displeased humming fills the room, dragging everyone’s attention back to him. 

“You’ve f—“ starts Megatron, tone sharp as he leans in eagerly. 

“ _Maybe_ !” snaps Ratchet, shooting him a furious look before snapping his attention to Optimus. “I have _maybe_ found something. I think it will be helpful—“

“What is it?” overrides Megatron, crossing his arms over his chest. It’s still imposing, even with the pronounced absence of the fusion cannon. 

Ratchet drags his entire head around slowly, returning his gaze to Megatron as he conspicuously draws in air, settling his composure the way Optimus has seen him do a thousand times when faced with something particularly stupid. “I am _attempting_ to avoid _jumping the gun_ , if you’ll excuse the turn of phrase,” says Ratchet in his best, most frosty tone as he gestures between Megatron and Optimus. “So if you’ll let me _finish_?”

Megatron scowls, fury whipping through his field at the insolent address, but in an instant it’s pulled back again and he nods once, curt. 

Ratchet rotates his optics in his helm slowly, an affectation he’s picked up from the humans. On them it’s somewhat amusing; on a Cybertronian face it’s downright unnerving. “I am indebted for your consideration,” he drawls out, turning back to face Optimus. “ _As_ I was saying: it will be helpful if you can run me through your last interaction with Prowl. Both of you, but specifically you, Optimus.”

“It was ordinary,” says Optimus, trying to modulate out the thread of distress he knows is in his tone. “I mean, we argued? I don’t, the last thing I said to him was in anger, but it was nothing we haven’t expressed towards each other before. I wish I’d been kinder, I’m—“

“Words, Optimus, I need specifics,” says Ratchet, his berthside manner showing through in the kindness of his tone. “He came to pull you away from the treaty writing. What were you doing when he walked in the room?”

Optimus stares for a moment, trying to make his processor work faster as he attempts to jump trains of thought and access the memories immediately _before_ this awful thing. 

“We were arguing,” says Megatron for him. “Mining rights for an energon convertible resource in one of those little scrubland patches this territory’s government saw fit to cede to Autobot control.”

Yes, that was it. Inconsequential, now, really. Optimus nods. “Prowl informed us of the time, and asked if we’d finalised the section we were working on,” he says quietly. “I informed him we hadn’t and updated him on the current topic.”

Megatron shifts slightly, eyeing Prowl’s cracked open corpse with distinct unease. “He asked if we were planning to regroup at the open of first shift,” he says, fingers flexing where they rest on his arm. 

Optimus feels like he should be gratified that Megatron is just as unsettled as he is by the prospect of one of their own choosing to end their life, but he can’t muster any real emotion towards Megatron right now. Even the anger feels distant, overwhelmed. 

Megatron continues, either not noticing or not caring about Optimus’ passive observations. “I told him we weren’t leaving the table for the shift until this particular issue was resolved, in writing, with acknowledgements from both of us.”

“He offered a suggestion,” says Optimus, realising that he’s squeezing Jazz’s hand still. He shifts back a little, letting Jazz reclaim his limb. “It was something we’d already discussed and tabled, so Megatron told him to go away, and I seconded him. And then he went. And he did this.”

“Too vague,” says Ratchet, shaking his head. “Access the memory files if you have to, you said you spoke in anger, that you argued. What was his suggestion?”

“To use the human methods and available labour,” says Megatron irritably. “We’d discussed it to death for several hours at the beginning of the previous shift, and it wasn’t viable, which we told him.”

“And then?” asks Ratchet, still as a statue where he stands next to Prowl on the berth. 

“He pushed it,” says Optimus. “He argued that the humans have a history and experience with mining in these environments that we don’t. Megatron cut him off and told him to leave, and I said I’d come by and see him after we finished.”

“Prime,” says Ratchet, and there’s a thin thread of steel running through his voice. Optimus can’t remember the last time Ratchet called him by his title instead of his name, actually. 

“The _specifics_ of what I said,” says Megatron, his tone cutting, though the way he’s looking at Prowl has something haunted about it. “Was—it’s something Starscream inevitably ends up saying whenever he has to collaborate with Shockwave, you understand. It’s infiltrated my processor by virtue of exposure. I told him that if he really thought that was true then he’d be better off blowing a hole in his processor and bringing us what shook out afterwards. And then I told him to frag off.”

Anger whips through Jazz’s field, but outwardly there’s no other reaction. Optimus hates it when Jazz is silent. It means something is wrong, and this is so incredibly wrong. Prowl is so—Prowl _was_ so used to people snapping at him in anger, Optimus doesn’t know where Ratchet is going with this. 

“And what did you say to that?” asks Ratchet, his voice toneless. “Exact words, Prime, if you please.”

Optimus forces himself to queue up the memory file, the last time he’d seen his friend alive. “I said that Megatron was right,” he says softly, vents sighing. “And then I told him that if he wanted to work on this that badly then he should go do it in his office and I’d come by to see what shook out later. And then I said ‘Please go now’ and I turned around and I didn’t even watch him leave.”

Silence hangs heavy between the four of them. Megatron’s eyes haven’t left Prowl, and Jazz has given up trying to control his field, shifting towards containment instead. It’s a tight bubble of anger, grief, guilt and sorrow buffeting up against Optimus’ own, and the only thing Optimus wants to do is take Jazz back to his hab unit and let them both break down in peace. Prowl has been their closest friend for so long, his absence is like a wound in their sparks. 

The war is ostensibly _over_ for Primus’ sake, they’re _done_ , the losses are supposed to be _done_ , this shouldn’t have _happened_!

Ratchet’s optics are dark and his expression can only be described as ‘resigned’. “I thought you might say something like that,” he says, just as soft. 

“What do you mean?” asks Optimus dully. He wants Ratchet to get to the point, to let them all go and process their grief. He wants to hold Jazz tightly and believe that he will never suffer another loss like this. He wants to go put himself into recharge and pretend that he can defrag the pain away. Anything but dragging this out any longer. 

The sound of Ratchet’s vents sighing is barely there, and he onlines his optics again, looking down at his hand where it’s resting gently on Prowl’s shoulder. His face is set and neutral, the face Optimus knows accompanies bad news. No emotion to project or misinterpret. “The priority ranking, it caught my attention,” says Ratchet mildly. “Because it’s not current, or even new, but it’s not the original either. It’s a ranking of the command structure of the Autobot response to the Decepticon movement, based on order flow, and I was expecting it to be the one we established when we arrived here. But it’s not, it’s from a very long time ago. It was the first restructuring of Autobot command that you did when you received the Matrix and took over, in fact.”

An old file. Optimus glances at Megatron to see if he’s going to lose patience and snap at Ratchet to simply say what he found again, but Megatron is watching Ratchet intently, hanging on his every word. 

Ratchet continues, seemingly unaware that his rapt audience isn’t one wearing the same badge as him. “And before that, I found a very odd code tree, full of outdated, useless command processes that should have been discarded or adjusted long ago. But they still had all the markers of being categories that had to be met before Prowl could execute an action. Overlapping sets of ‘will’ and ‘will not’. Initially I was irritated, because if I’d known he hadn’t bothered to prune those categories I could have cut down remarkably on the overheating issue he’d been having since, oh, the entire time I’ve known him.”

That didn’t make any sense—Prowl was one of the most efficient mechs on the Autobot side, and every decision he had made had been tailored and executed with extreme forethought. He simply wouldn’t have bothered with anything so redundant or limiting. And he’d kept tabs on his code, he had even gently chided Optimus about a rogue logic tree once or twice. 

Megatron takes a step closer to Prowl, his face mimicking Ratchet’s with the lack of expression as he examines the corpse on the berth. 

“So when I looked at the outdated priority ranking, I noticed the one thing that hadn’t changed in any future iteration of Autobot command,” says Ratchet, reluctantly pulling his hand back. “It was the number of people who outranked Prowl. In that first restructure you put him right under you, in charge of everyone, except the Prime himself, of course, because the Prime is the top of everyone’s tree.”

He looks up at Optimus with this, as though he expects Optimus to disagree with what he’s saying, or to infer some kind of meaning. 

“Yes?” says Optimus eventually, unable to stop it from coming out as a question. “We’d worked together for a while at that point, he was incredibly valuable even, if no one before me was willing to pull him up to an appropriate position to do anything with that. I made him my second because he had the skills I needed and I trusted him. Please, what are you saying?”

Ratchet watches him for a long moment, then nods. “Prowl’s build class had exacting specifications,” he says, and then he hesitates. “ _Exacting_. He was built for a purpose, essentially.” He pauses again, looking unsure how to proceed. 

“Enforcer class, yeah.” Surprisingly it’s Jazz who speaks up, his posture unchanging, face finally looking at Ratchet instead of Prowl on the berth. “We talked about it a few times. How he started out, got pulled out for the initial response team, ended up in the Prime’s office, slag like that. But he was onlined with full Enforcer coding. You’re saying it’s that, right? ‘Cause you went to primary coding and you’re talkin’ about build class. Spell it out for us, Ratch, ‘cause I wanna know what we missed, ‘cause we clearly missed _something_!”

The anger in his tone and field lashes out heavy with his words, volume rising on the last of them, and all of Jazz’s plating bristles as he settles again. 

Ratchet is back to expressionless, and he nods again. “Yes. It’s part of the original Enforcer coding. It’s old, and it’s disgusting. The Enforcer system was in that weird place between civilian and military, and I knew the protocols weren’t quite the same as either—essentially they had more privileges than someone in a civilian class, but less leeway to use them than a military mech.”

Megatron grunts, nodding. “Military mechs need to be able to make a wider range of decisions when performing their role,” he says evenly. “They require fewer limitations because a battlefield has very little in the way of real structure.”

“Essentially, yes,” agrees Ratchet. “But Enforcers weren’t operating on a battlefield, they were operating in civilian centres, so they had less freedom to decide how they used their skill set.”

“Yeah, the laws were pretty specific,” says Jazz, shifting in place, agitated. “I remember, okay, I was _real_ familiar with ‘em back in the day.”

“It’s not about the laws,” says Ratchet softly. “They baked it into the primary code, apparently.”

“What do you mean?” asks Optimus, shifting slightly. “That he was onlined with certain restrictions?”

“No,” says Ratchet, and his lips curl downwards in disgust and anger. “I’m saying he was onlined with a chain of command. One he physically couldn’t disobey.”

Megatron is the first one to respond, and even he takes a moment. “What?” he says, dangerously quiet, laser focused on Ratchet. 

“Every time his place in the chain updated, the number of people who could and couldn’t tell him what to do updated,” says Ratchet, meeting Megatron’s gaze implacably. “Because the original coding’s purpose was to make sure that if someone who was designated as being able to tell him what to do told him to do something, then he would damn well do it. You know. _Compliance coding_.”

It feels like every inch of armour covering Optimus’ body freezes in place in an instant. Nothing is responding in the face of his shock, and he can only watch in horror. 

Ratchet barrels on, ruthless in the face of what is historically one of their race’s greatest crimes. “So he had this damn coding tree throwing out useless orders from people above him that had been too general to remove themselves once it would seem reasonable, along with everyone in charge of him _adding_ to it at whatever _whim_ they might have, and the only way he was capable of trimming it _back_ was to move up the chain so he could disregard the orders from those he then outranked! And he did! He got there! All the way to the top with the exception of the Prime! Free on the world’s worst _technicality_!”

Free, except for anything Optimus had said to him. 

The implications are _dizzying_. Optimus can feel himself start to lock up trying to process them all. Megatron’s field is swamping the room, suffocating anything else he might be feeling with righteous anger. Optimus doesn’t know where to look or what to say, and his optics flick from Ratchet, to Prowl’s corpse on the berth, to Megatron stiff with rage, to Jazz who is—

To Jazz who is leaving. He’s not looking at any of them, pacing away determinedly, the medbay door sliding open ahead of him. Optimus takes one step towards him, field outstretched, and Jazz seems to speed up in response, slipping out and away before the door has even fully finished its slide to the other end of its rail. 

One familiar, gunmetal hand clamps on the plating at Optimus back and _yanks_ him around. “ _No_ ,” snarls Megatron, stepping right into Optimus’ personal space. “You don’t get to run away from _this_.”

Unwittingly, the memory file of Prowl finally plays, the exact words Optimus had said ringing in his audials. “ _If you want to work on it that badly, go do so in your office, Prowl! I’ll stop by later and see what you shook out. Please, go now._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Cold-constructed Enforcers are onlined with compliance coding. Prowl literally cannot disobey an order from a superior officer.
> 
> Sentinel Prime disliked him and often dismissively said things like "oh, go walk off a bridge". Prowl never knew whether Sentinel knew about the coding or not, but his hijacked frame was helpless to obey, even as he watched. This did nothing for his reputation as a stickler for the rules or as a weakling who couldn't handle war, driving mechs away and leaving him alone with no one to talk to, no one who was willing to hear an explanation.
> 
> The number of instances dropped to zero once Optimus Prime took over. Prowl was grateful, and the medics chalked it up to an abusive relationship with Sentinel. 
> 
> Then Optimus and Megatron get into a fight while drafting a truce. When Prowl tries to break them up, Megatron tells him to "frag off and die" and Optimus agrees like "please do". Shocked, Prowl asks for confirmation.  
> "Sir?"  
> "Just go to your office."
> 
> Later, Red Alert's sensors detect gunfire in the officers' hall and Prowl is found dead at his desk with no note. The autopsy reveals the compliance coding, and Optimus has to deal with the fact that he killed his friend and likely just restarted the war if Megatron's expression is any indication.
> 
> \--
> 
> _Suggested Tag_ : Jazz/Prowl  
>  _Me_ : Hmm, good start, but I think we can go angstier.
> 
> If there's anything in here I've failed to tag for please let me know and I'll alter accordingly, I am not out here to give anyone a Nasty Surprise! Anonymous Prompter, I hope this slakes your thirst. 
> 
> I have been held at knife point by my betas and the promise of fluff, happy poly ship fics, and details for just why exactly Prowl is friends with a knitting group in Portland has been extracted from me. I'm not allowed to do this to him again, don't worry, go read something nice to salve your souls. :)
> 
> ETA: Beware the inspired fics! Beware! BEWARE! There lies more pain, highly recommend all of them omg
> 
> Child of ETA: I don't know what I did to deserve all y'all's fics thank you <3 I wrote the Knitting group fic for fluff's sake, read it and soothe yourself [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23848270)

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